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Serendipity: Shifting the Paradigm	By : Ghost-of-a-Chance Category: Dragon Ball Z > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 589 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ, any of its characters/devices, or any books/movies/song mentioned; no money's being made here. I DO own Sierra, Rio, Rowan, & all my OCs...and a very fat cat named "Heifer."

Chapter List
- 10
- 11
- 12
A shit-ton of TRIGGERS in this chapter.
Present tense: domestic abuse, physical assault, child abuse, toxic relationships, panic attacks, violence, abduction, obviously language, and a suggestion of what could possibly be considered suicide-by-proxy.
Past-tense, mostly hinted or insinuated: adult-minor sexual relationship, non-con in such relationship, child abuse, potentially deadly injuries...and I'm sure I'm missing something. Read with caution; this is about to get messy.
FYI: There’s a cliffhanger here. You may want to run my shorts up a flagpole afterward. I’ve got the next chapter ready to go ahead of time, but I really hope to find some comments on this one. Please? A special thanks to Thundercloud on AFF for beta-reading this for me!
Suggested Listening: Evanescence “Disappear” and “Haunted,” David Archuleta “Everybody Hurts,” AFI “The Leaving Song, part II”
I need your help, I can't fight this forever.
I know you're watching,
I can feel you out there.*
The Wolf is Coming to Call
Friday evening, deep in an untamed wilderness
Alone and unbothered, Piccolo stood atop a tall bluff, staring off into the weakening dusk. Back turned on the last traces of the descending sun, arms crossed and eyes closed, he reached out his senses for answers. No voice answered him—no thoughts reached him—all he had to go on was a strong, if vague, feeling of unease.
Something wasn’t right. Something, he realized setting his chin, was coming...but what ? The blue of the sky was endless, uninterrupted by storm clouds. The air was still, but not so still as to worry him. There was no word from Dende or Goku about an approaching threat so the world mustn’t be in danger. Still… His lips tightened and thinned in a grimace. Something wasn’t right, even if the world at large was safe.
The last rays of sunlight drifted lower and lower, trailing from Piccolo’s weighted mantle to the restless hem of his cloak, then they faded out of sight in the gulch below. Still, Piccolo had no answers...only a bone-deep feeling of wrongness. Off in the distance, the cry of some wounded creature agreed with him: danger was near, and all was not right for those in its path.
Rio and Rowan’s duplex
Two little rabbits live all alone.
They’re sure that their safety is set in stone.
Do you feel, little rabbits, that chill in your bones?
The wolf is coming to call.
To anyone else, the words would seem harmless–a morbid nursery rhyme sent as a prank–but Rio and Rowan were no strangers to such missives. This was only the latest recurrence in a long line of warnings—deceptively threatening letters preceding a very real threat. Her heart pounding, her skin crawling in fear and revulsion, Rowan reached around to her left shoulder, palm pressing and fingers clenching on the sprawling lines of deep red ink bared by her sleeveless shirt. That tattoo hid a horrifying mess of scarring, all from the last time they received such a letter.
She struggled to settle her panic–her mother would panic enough for both of them and someone needed to keep a clear head. There were more important things to focus on at the moment. Rowan shuffled upstairs to her mother's room. Sure enough, her light tap on the doorframe nearly sent Rio through the roof; bright green eyes with pinpoint pupils locked on Rowan’s, their owner bouncing between panting for breath and not breathing at all. Rowan knew for certain just what was happening; she’d seen it happen too many times to not recognize the signs. Rio's heart rate was racing and intent on dragging her pulse and blood pressure with it. The quiet, dimly lit room would seem painfully bright to Rio’s eyes, and her own breath and heartbeat would sound deafening. Horrifying memories flitted through her mind’s eye, reminding her of what awaited them should they stay in their home when the wolf came a-calling. Rowan had seen this exact circumstance far too many times to ever mistake the truth—another panic attack—for anything more logical.
"He's coming after me again." Rowan’s voice was quiet and weak, and it didn't at all fit her usual spunk. "…isn't he?" Rio nodded, turning back to the half-packed duffle bag open on the bed. "How long do you think we'll have...before...?"
"Last time we had five days." Rio yanked a handful of paired socks from her dresser and shoved them into the bag. "The time before,we had seven, and the time before that, nine. If he follows his pattern again–and I wouldn't put much faith in that happening–we’d have three days. He's switched on us before so we'd better not risk it." Rio went silent, unable to finish the statement.
In a habit older than Rowan, her shaky hand drifted up to the backside of her head, gingerly resting just above the fusion of the parietal and occipital plates. When she was fifteen, she would have felt only her scalp and hair...but that was before her mistake. By her sixteenth birthday, a metal plate replaced a sizable portion of shattered bone, soon followed by grafted skin. Even now, her fingertips snagged on the still-tender scarring between her thinned hair before peeling away and returning to her suitcase. "I called the school—get packin' Kiddo."
Rowan watched her mother a moment, debating and worrying. "We need to call the police." Although Rowan's voice was soft, Rio's reaction was a sharp glare over her shoulder.
"Won't do no good," the older woman reminded with a bitter scowl. Her grammar and pronunciation always suffered when she was frightened, and hearing it always caught Rowan off-guard. "It never has, never will—they won't do a damn thing ‘til he's on our doorstep, an' he'll still get paroled!"
"You never call 'em 'til he's here!" Rowan protested. "We should tell 'em beforehand and file another restraining order—"
"That happened with a restraining order!" Rio shouted, gesturing heatedly to Rowan's tattoo—or rather, the web of scarring it covered. Rowan flinched away; her hand shot out to cover the inked skin leaving the delicate hummingbird's tiny red beak poking out just past her palm. "I filed a strain-order,” Rio reminded in increasingly broken English, “he didn't send no threat–he just showed up an' I couldn't stop 'im! Cops never helped us, they won’t help us ‘til we bleed in the street, an' I ain't let’ it happen ‘gain! We're leavin', ‘t's final!"* Rowan opened her mouth to argue but as her mother stormed over to yank more clothes from the closet, she thought better of it. Rio never listened when she got this worked up.
For a time, all Rowan could do was watch her mother, recognizing the fear behind Rio's rage and wishing she was strong enough to fix the situation for her. Even after seventeen years of having to go into hiding every time her father was released on parole, Rowan still held out hope someday they wouldn't have to run away from him. "I wish…" Rio paused in her packing, green eyes meeting the pair that almost matched hers; Rowan was staring at the floor instead. "I wish we could warn Aunt Dai," Rowan finished weakly and began carefully rolling clothes for packing. "She's always there for us when this happens…if she knew…he was coming—"
"She ain’t here," Rio grunted as she wrestled with a stuck zipper. At least she wasn’t shouting anymore, and she was speaking more intelligibly. "We got no way to find 'er, she made damn sure'a that. Dai won’t show up an' save the day, Roe...she made 'er choice an' it ain’t us.* We're fuckin' screwed an' we gotta run—get used to it." The redhead flinched; sometimes she really wished she could hide her emotions the way her aunt could. Instead of admitting Rio hurt her feelings yet again, she tried another approach.
"Have you thought about why she might've left? It's not like her to just take off like this…there must've been a reason."
Rio missed the hint entirely. "I know why she left—she couldn't take the heat so she got out'a the damn kitchen. That's all there is to it—drop it. Go pack." Her words, harsh and thoughtless, confirmed Rowan's suspicions…either Rio truly had no clue, or she knew the truth but wouldn't admit it even to herself. Rowan obviously wasn't there when Rio and Sierra were growing up—she was born shortly after Rio's sixteenth birthday—but if her aunts’ and late grandparents' reactions were anything to go by, Rio was like this even before Rowan was born. Aside from intermittent speech problems and scars, the consensus was her brain injury didn’t change very much.
Rowan was still a child when she realized why her family always 'went on vacation' suddenly and with little warning. Those trips were always spent far from home and out of the public eye, with Rio either half-mad from fear or half-conscious from tranquilizers—nothing like thevacations her classmates bragged about!Rowan found out after the fact that those trips were prompted by her absent father’s parole and release from prison. As long as Rowan could remember, Sierra was always there when Rio called her—she always came to their rescue, always supported Rio through her fears and anger, and always kept in close contact with the Police to make sure they didn't come home before Robert Biers either left the city or was picked up again for violating his parole.
Even after everything Sierra did for them, though, Rio refused to pull her punches—she continually leaned far too heavily on Sierra and took her temper out on her when things didn't go right. Then, last Fall, Sierra finally needed their help and tried to tell them so…not only did Rio not understand, she accused her own sister of being overly dramatic. As much as it hurt to lose her cherished Aunt Dai, Rowan understood why Sierra cut them out of her life…Rio's attitude was toxic and her behavior equally so. Anytime Rowan asked Sierra about it, her aunt always blamed it on the same things—Rio had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, she suffered brain damage in the incident that caused it, and she was horrible at processing her feelings without screaming or throwing things while doing so. No matter how many times that same old song and dance played out, Rowan always saw something else beneath the surface—she saw the unspoken in Sierra's earth-brown eyes, and that was that Rio was unreasonable and bullheaded even before her much older 'boyfriend' nearly killed her.
A zebra couldn't wash away its stripes but people could learn to cope; shame Rio's version of coping involved pushing away those she loved.
Up on Kami’s Lookout – the Divine Library
Dende loved the smell of old books. He wasn’t exactly sure why or how to explain it, and he suspected it wasn’t normal, but that changed nothing. Surrounded by wisdom beyond the comprehension of mankind, the perfume of cracked leather and faded vellum, and the calm stillness of a room untouched by time, he stood in silence. His fingertips trailed along the spines of a few choice volumes as if he wondered which to read, but he couldn’t have recited the titles for the life of him. He felt too...restless. Why? Why couldn’t he focus on anything? His distracted eyes drifted over to another shelf, then to his favorite armchair. Why did he feel like he would miss something if he let down his guard?
“Kami-sama? Are ya there?”
Ah. That might be why. It was probably a bad sign that he immediately recognized the voice as belonging to Sierra’s niece, Rowan, but he had to admit it didn’t surprise him. As often as he checked up on her– for Sierra, he told himself–he wasn’t liable to forget her voice or her appearance anytime soon. Again, his brother’s scathing remarks came to mind. But...Scargo couldn’t understand. He was apprenticed to a village leader now, true, but Dende was responsible for an entire world of people unlike their people. He wasn’t, as Scargo accused, trying to be human. He was just…
...out on the balcony. When did his feet lead him past the bookshelves to the doors? Dende shook his head and leaned on the stone balustrade, looking out over Popo’s garden.
“I’m sorry to be a bother...again.” A wordless psychic encouragement soothed the worry in her voice, but it worried him more. How far was too far when comforting mortals? Did his—admittedly distant—connection to Rowan excuse his continued bending of the rules? “It’s just…” Dende patiently waited for the young human to find her words, eyes staring up into the endless blue of the upper atmosphere. “It’s...my father.”
When she reached out, Dende expected...well, to be honest, he wasn’t sure what he expected, but he never expected this. He watched the sky darken with the oncoming night, and listened patiently to Rowan’s carefully revealed fears. Her father–the person Sierra warned Dende about, most likely–was released from prison on parole. In response, Rowan and her mother would have to leave town for a while. She didn’t explain the reasoning; instead, while searching for words, her mind drifted and painted a grisly picture for anyone capable of seeing it. What Dende picked up turned his stomach–a memory of fear and violence, a bloody knife and even bloodier sidewalk, and a tangled web of cuts now covered by delicate red ink. He picked her out easily among the masses below and looked in on her. Her bed was covered with half-folded clothing and a suitcase lay open on her desk; her eyes, pained and dull, fell to the floor. Her hand crept over to cover the tattoo bared by her sleeveless top, gripping her arm so tightly her knuckles paled. The design hid the scars on her skin, but the scars on her heart were too deep to cover.
“He’s...he’s coming after us again,” Rowan explained quietly enough to not be overheard. “He’s not allowed to see me and...he blames Mom for his time in prison...he always comes after us when he’s paroled.” Dende’s shoulders slackened and his spine tensed; this, he admitted if only to himself, was why the duty of the Kami wasn’t to involve themself in the lives of mortals, but to watch, listen, and comfort their world. This was why Kami weren’t to get attached to their mortal charges; mortals, no matter how independent, always asked for help in the end. He thought this girl—Rowan—was different from the rest, but even she was about to fall to her species’ weakness for immortal protection. By now, he should be used to disappointment.
“I won’t ask for help.”
Wait... what? Dende stood up back straight and shoulders hunched and leaned heavily on the balustrade as if he could see her clearer by looking over it.
“We’ve gone through this several times before and it’ll happen again,” Rowan explained under her breath. “Better get used to it, right? Just...usually we have Sierra—my Auntie Dai I’ve told you about—to help out, or even Auntie Cordelia. But...Dai’s still missing and Cor’s not talkin’ to us. We’re on our own this time.” She hesitated, tucking a loose lock of carrot-red hair behind her ear and trailing down to cup the back of her neck. In the memories leaking out of her distracted conscious, Dende saw another injury—dark, widespread bruising ringing her neck and trailing from her right eye to below her neckline. Her father again, he was sure of it...but she wasn’t asking for help? For protection? “Mom…” Rowan glanced behind her as if hoping to see through her closet into her mother’s bedroom. “...she’s scared...she’s right to be scared, but someone’s gotta get us through this. She can’t, so it’s up to me.”
Rowan took a deep breath—so deep Dende could see her ribcage expand and her back straighten—then she let it out twice as slowly. Her open eyes—vibrant green and undeniably frightened—lifted to the ceiling, and the breath in his lungs turned stale. “I won’t ask for help,” she repeated firmly, “just...just strength...and courage, if that’s alright...I’ve gotta be the strong one now, and if Dad finds us…” Again, she turned to the closet, then returned her eyes heavenward. “Auntie Cor could stand up to Robert, but there’s no way Mom can...and Cor’s not coming, so...if he finds us...I’ll have to do it.” The temptation was palpable to ensure this "Robert" person would never reach his child and her mother. He felt it in his skin, like the itching footsteps of a too-large insect skittering down Dende’s neck; still, he managed to hold off on swatting it away. Comfort and console, he reminded himself, watch and witness — Hero wasn’t in his job description, nor was Executioner .
The human below continued without notice of Dende’s ethical dilemma. “I’m sure you’ve got bigger things to worry about than us.” That’s right—he had an entire world to worry about, a world with much worse going on than this one mortal’s situation. So why was he patiently listening to her instead of focusing on the wars, violence, and genocide in other countries? Still, he listened; still, he answered her call instead of waiting for her to find answers herself. “If you have a moment to spare, please help me find the strength to support my mother, and the courage to protect us if it comes down to it.” Rowan gave a sheepish smile, and added, “ I won’t ask for it, but if Robert just so happens to get run down by the karma bus on the way, I won’t complain. After everything he’s done, I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before it comes after him.”
This time, when Dende sent out a ‘nudge,’ he didn’t watch or listen for how it manifested; he was too focused on the confusion and conflict in his heart. “ Huh. Is that your way of saying ‘true strength comes from within’ or ‘don’t worry sister, you’ve got this?’” A snicker burst up and out his nose before he could consider why her words were funny; it seemed to happen more often than not with this mortal, and that confused him. She responded to his silence with a comforted, curious hum, then, “alright then. Thank you, Kami-sama...thanks for everything.”
Silence over the airwaves, as humans would say; Dende's job was, for the moment, done. Still, he watched as the red-haired teenager rose to her feet, folded clothing, and packed her suitcase. There was no reason to keep watching—his task was completed so he should move on—still… A gusty sigh wheezed out of his lungs and his eyes lifted to the stars above as if begging strength and courage from the Kais— his guardians, in a way, though the comparison wasn’t exact. “Be safe,” he muttered to the girl who couldn’t hear him.
A gasp answered him. He left the connection wide open?! He let her hear his voice?! His head swam with all the things that could go wrong and all the celestial rules he just broke, unintentionally or not. Popo would have his head, he was sure of it! Fearfully, fretfully, he turned all his focus back to the small bedroom, the pale green walls and old pink carpet, and the young woman standing frozen at her desk. Earthlings weren’t used to hearing from their guardian—many believed there was no guardian, and of those who did believe in him, most considered him silent, sentient, but unwilling to communicate directly. Though untrue, these beliefs were effective at deterring demands for help and intervention. ...and he just blew it.
Rowan’s hands trembled—one on the lid of her suitcase and the other covering her lips—and her wide, stunned eyes softened. Her hand fell to her chest, revealing lips curved in a tight, watery smile, and she nodded. “I’ll do my best,” she whispered looking up to the ceiling through her eyelashes. “Thank you.”
For a time, what seemed like an hour almost, it was all Dende could do to breathe. Once the shock wore off and he could breathe without choking on it, he severed the connection and rushed back into the library. There, he found Popo waiting for him, watching him silently. As usual, the djinn’s eyes were wide and vacuous and his expression was carefully blank. Dende expected worry, reproach, or even anger after his slipup, but Popo was, visually, a blank slate. Dende ducked his head and let his arms fall to his sides, hands hidden in the long, wide sleeves of his robe. “That was an accident,” he muttered, “a mistake.”
“Was it?” Popo’s voice, like his expression, was void of any emotion. The guardian-in-training knew he was in trouble—right?—but he couldn’t get a read on his assistant for the life of him.
“Yes.” Dende clenched his fists in his sleeves, wishing that Popo, for once, would just guide him without expecting him to figure things out on his own. The previous Kami tasked Popo with supporting Dende in his role—he was supposed to teach him how to fill the old Kami’s shoes! How could anyone learn from a teacher who never taught?! “It won’t happen again,” Dende insisted instead of voicing his frustration and mortification. Popo, still a blank slate, tilted his head slightly and watched Dende trudged past him to the hallway. From the library, Popo’s response chilled him.
“Won’t it?”
Rowan was almost finished packing when her phone began belting out the chorus from a song too old for her—AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck,” the ringtone Rowan set for a certain family friend. She couldn’t answer quickly enough; Dakota, while not family by blood, was just who she needed to hear from. Before they could do more than exchange greetings, however, Dakota cut her off.
“Your sperm-donor’s on the way.”
Rowan flinched. The description was more accurate than calling Robert Biers her father, but who ever wanted to mentally connect their parents with sex? “Thanks, now I need brain bleach.” She dragged her palm down her face as if hoping to physically scrub the image from her mind. “He jammed more bad poetry in the mailbox; we’re leaving in the morning.” Muffled words sounded on the other line—English, from the sound of it but too quiet for Rowan to recognize or understand. “Koda?”
"Listen, Kiddo." Dakota paused, sighed, and if Rowan correctly recognized the rustling sounds, ran her fingers through her perpetually staticky grey hair. "I...can't say much but I gotta warn you. Remember that gal I've told you about? The one who sometimes sees stuff before it happens?"
Behind Rowan, her door creaked open. “It’s Koda,” she mouthed to her mother and put the phone on speaker. “Mom’s here, you’re on speaker. What’s going on?”
Rio and Dakota exchanged their usual pleasantries–insults, technically, but to them, the harsh words indicated affection–then the other person on the line cleared their throat. “I’m gettin’ there, Jeez,” Dakota groused. “Rio, Kid, I’ve got that friend on Skype right now. She’s seen somethin’ again an’...well, she’s not been wrong yet...an’ what she saw this time was bad enough to make ’er wake out of a dead sleep an’ call me at seven in the friggin’ mornin’ her time on a Saturday, half-panicked.* She wants me to warn ya.”
“Then stop piddlin’ around an’ warn us,”* Rio grumbled. Dakota sighed, and again, that rustling sound came through the phone’s speaker; whatever she had to say, clearly she couldn’t find an easy way to say it.
“Biers...Robert…” Another frustrated sigh; another, louder rustle. “He’s gonna break the pattern again; you need to leave tonight.” A loud bang sounded on the other end of the line, reminiscent of someone thumping their hand on a tabletop, and Rowan thought she heard the words not good enough. “Actually, ya ought’a leave as soon as possible—right now if you can manage.” The nameless person on the other end of the line harumphed and grumbled something at Dakota, who snapped, “I know, sheesh! Rio, she ain’t got an ETA or anything, just warning signs to watch for. There’ll be dry lightnin’—no, it ain’t my fault—an’ if you’re still around to see it, you’re too late. The neighbor’s dog’ll go ballistic then silent, an’ when he reaches your door, someone’s car alarm’s gonna go off.”
“That’s...oddly specific. How—”
Rio cut her daughter off with a disgusted keh and snatched the phone out of Rowan’s hand. “Koda,” she barked, “you tell your friend to quit pouting an’ come home! Dai’s a grown-ass woman—runnin’ away won’t solve nothin’, an’ passin’ messages like this is juvenile!” Dakota sputtered—the unnamed 'psychic' scoffed—Rowan winced—Rio neither heard nor saw any of what her tantrum caused. All she saw was Rowan's packed suitcase, and all she heard was yet another reminder that her twin sister ran out right when they needed her most...and the voice on the other end sounded eerily familiar...and the odds that Dakota knew two psychics weren’t impressive. “Ya hear me, Dai?!” she spat at the phone, “quit bein’ a child! If you’re so damned worried about us, then come home! Quit hidin’ if we matter so much to ya!”
“Mom, that’s not—!”
“I’m not your sister, Susana-Ria.” The nameless psychic’s voice was finally loud enough to understand...and digitally masked beyond any possible recognition. “I’m a distant relative of Dakota’s, and the person trying to save your bacon. Whatever problem you have with your sister, is it really worth risking your life, and the life of your child, over a spat?”
Rio sputtered and fumed, pronouns and articles spewing from her lips at random as she struggled for a way to answer without losing more ground. Finally, she gave up the search and scoffed. “Min’ y’own damn business,”* she spat. With that, she dropped Rowan’s phone on her desk and stalked out, slamming the door behind her. People minding their own business, however, was how Rowan’s father was able to come after them time and time again.
This time, the sigh and hair-pulling were on Rowan's side of the line, accompanied by head-shaking and watery eyes. She lifted the phone to her ear and switched off the speaker. “Koda…” She fell short, sniffling. “Sorry. She always gets worse wh—”
“Don’t apologize for her, Rowan,” the digitally masked voice soothed. “Rio’s misbehavior is her own doing. You’re her daughter, not her babysitter—that wasn’t your fault.” Even with those encouraging words, it would take a fair minute for Rowan’s eyes to dry, her throat to clear, and her supposed never-ending spunk to return.
“So…” Dakota cleared her throat awkwardly. “Dai ran off. There anyone else you can call for help?”
“Well…” Rowan watched the skyline through her window; no lightning yet, but no rain, either. For once, she wished she could hear the neighbors’ noisy Shiba Inu through the double-pane windows without straining her ears. “I called Uncle Nick and Aunt Randy when we got the letter but we can’t stay with them—Robert’s connected them to us...so... yeah . He’ll probably check their place when he finds us gone.” Shoulders tight and drawn, she bunched the hem of her shirt in her fingers and twisted it, then petted the wrinkles flat. “He won’t do anything to them if we’re not there, and it’s not fair to ask them to take that risk. Nick promised to send word to Kuikku ...but…” Again, the shirt bunched; again, she smoothed out the wrinkles. Why couldn’t people’s anger and hurt be as easy to correct as a rumpled shirt? “...mercenaries aren’t the most legal guard dogs.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. Rowan pinched her nose. “Yes,” she muttered to Dakota and the unknown, unnamed psychic, “seriously. Our options are down to a former Red Ribbon mercenary guarding the house and hoping dear ol’ Dad gets hit by a bus. We’re buggered.”
When the tense phone call finally ended, the clock on Dakota’s laptop screen read 7:30 pm; the one in New Jersey would read the opposite. She tossed the silenced device onto her striped bedspread without ever looking away from the face on the computer screen. “Well that went well,” she huffed. On-screen, the mysterious psychic caller smacked her hand over her face and shook her head. The colors of her skin, hair, and eyes weren’t the only things she shared with Sierra, but her plump face and belt-length ponytail, and the shadows and rings under her eyes were proof they were different people.
“Rio’s just gettin’ more an’ more stubborn.” The stranger kneaded the skin between her eyebrows as if warding off a headache. “I knew she’d grow up a hothead, but this is shithead territory.” Face pinching, she sucked in a deep breath through her nose then let it out through her mouth; her hand fell, revealing eyes the color of coffee grounds and full lips pressed in a thin, tight line. “If she puts her kid’s life at risk over a grudge…”
“A grudge, you say?” Dakota braced her pointy elbow on her equally pointy knee and dropped her chin into her palm, looking entirely bored with the entire situation. The stranger knew better—Dakota was going for the kill. “You mean the grudge over her sister takin’ off without any warning an’ lettin’ her family think she’s dead? That grudge?”
“It was a mistake, dammit!” The stranger dropped her head into her hands, dug her fingers into her hair, and scratched all the way down to her face. “I was grieving! My husband died an’—an’ my in-laws didn’t know—I mean, I’m a Willow, but—but they didn’t know what that—Dakota, I thought I had nothin’ left!” As quickly as it formed, all the distress faded away from the surface, shoved down deep enough no one could see it; deflated, she turned her eyes away from her computer screen, focusing on something off-screen to her left. Dakota knew without asking that she was staring at a framed photo on the desk hutch’s lowest shelf—an old monochrome photo of the stranger several years younger, and a dying man wearing an oxygen cannula. "If I could go back," she said softly, "an' un-fake my death…”
“I know, Al,” Dakota sighed and let her arms dangle off her knees. Again, their recurring fight led back to the same place. “If you could, you would...but ya can’t.”
“I wish it was different.” The stranger—Al—shook her head. “I really do, but when Uncle Sam helps ya disappear, it’s a really stupid move to reappear without his approval. I don’t feel like gettin’ fired because I miss my fa—”
A deafening reverberating noise on Al’s end cut her off—a sound somewhere between a crash, a boom, and a crack—and in a burst of static and interference, she whipped around to stare off to the right. “Y-Y-You gotta-gotta be fr-riggin’—” Sure enough, a fire alarm began screeching in the distance and her pager, unseen, started buzzing like a honeybee bent on world domination. Like a switch was flipped, all the softness and sadness drained out of Al’s face and the screen stabilized. Her eyes swept up to her hairline then squinted closed—her head fell forward over her chest and shook in open defeat. “Sounds like that reckless ape blew up the firin’ range again,” she explained and silenced her pager. She stood, stretching her back, and reached out of view for her hat—a worn green hat with a golden John Deere logo on it. All while grumbling under her breath, she shoved it on her head and fastened the snap-band tight under her ponytail. “Gotta put on my big-girl hat an’ go fix his fuck-up. Keep me posted, ‘Koda.”
The line went dead, and Dakota’s screen went black; again, she was alone in the bedroom of her old model capsule house. Outside the window, the sky was even darker than her computer screen. Off in the distance, a faint light flickered between two clouds—a quiet rumble followed moments later. The girls’ home was in West City, on the far side of the continent. Logically, the lightning outside the window wouldn't come anywhere near Rio and Rowan, but Dakota couldn't silence the worrying twist in her gut.
Darkness. The smell of mothballs and dust. The distorted murmur of Rowan's radio next door. The coarse texture of old jeans and even older carpet. The metallic taste of blood mixed with the salt of tears. Panic attacks manifested many different ways and had many different sensations, but this was how Rio's tended to happen—crumpled in a ball and wedged in the bottom of her closet, fighting for air, and biting her tongue to keep quiet. The last thing her daughter needed was to hear her crying again.
Who will you tell, huh? Your Mommy? She won’t do anything.
Next door, Rowan’s window screeched open, followed by a noticeable pause. Her own daughter was afraid to make any noise around her? Why? Surely after all this time, Rowan knew she'd never let her be hurt... right? She’d do anything to protect her little girl—she’d done everything to protect her, just to keep her safe!
No one will believe you.
He was right—they didn’t believe her—not until it was too late, not until she was... Rio clenched her arms even tighter around herself, lungs heaving with the effort to breathe in the cramped space and stale air. Pregnant. She made herself finish the thought. No one believed her until she was pregnant and at risk of dying. Some things, they never believed...but maybe that was because she never told them.
Rio, you’ve got to stay away from that guy! He’s –
Shut up, Dai! What would you know?!
What would you know about anything?!
Sierra knew all along—Rio was the one who didn’t see the danger until it was staring her in the face. Blood on the sidewalk—blood on her skin—blood on the bedsheets in the hospital—blood on her sister’s hands, held up to pacify the person who shoved her down the steps, cracked her skull open, and meant to finish the job. She bit her tongue harder, tasting even more blood.
You shame us!
Your mother has been too lenient with you!
See what you have done to this family?
Sierra tried to warn her...she didn’t see the danger, and she didn’t believe her sister’s warnings, and the helping hand she reached for, instead, tried to kill her. She survived the attack...but only just survived it. Even now, going on eighteen years later, she was still just surviving. She buried her chin in her knees, wrapped her hands over the back of her head, and dug her fingers into her hair. Weak—she was still weak, still broken, completely hopelessly broken. She couldn’t conquer her fear of being hurt...so she still pushed everyone away before they could hurt her first.
Slowly, her eyes focused—slowly, her lungs slowed and the noise in her brain silenced. Slowly, she came back from the horrific past to the frightening present. ‘Maybe…' She bit her tongue harder, using the pain to ground herself. '...if I sent Rowan away...and stayed behind…' The very idea sent ice-cold dread skittering through her veins. ‘...she’d be safe...if he...got...me...maybe he’d…’ Logically, she knew the truth—sacrificing herself would never work. Robert wouldn't waste his time on her when hurting her daughter would break her beyond anything else. No amount of self-sacrifice would prevent this from happening again...all they could do was run.
Again, the light and shadow blended together in a painful blurry mess; again, her lungs heaved and her skin prickled. Fingers clenched painfully into her hair, fingernails digging into the skin over the replaced portion of her skull, and her back bowed to even more painful contortions. Again, her assailant emerged from the past, if only in her memories, and filled her ears with poison.
You chose this, Ria.
You are at fault.
Now you will live with the consequences.
With the last bit of focus she possessed, Rio whimpered into the denim covering her knees. ‘Damn you Robert...an’ damn me, too.’
The Lookout - just after Midnight
Dende was always an early riser but this was ridiculous. First, he looked at the clock– ew, was that the time? –then out the window– nope, nothing going on out there. There was absolutely no reason for him to be awake at this unholy hour; still, he was wide awake and felt like he’d remain so for the day. He scrubbed his hand over his scalp and stretched his neck and shoulders, and shambled down the hall toward the kitchen. By the time he had the tea kettle on to boil he’d checked on all of Goku’s fellow warriors, his family back on New Namek, and even the usual earthly drama-starters; he even spent a while fielding King Kai’s latest awful jokes. There was no threat...so why was he anxious? What caused the tension in his back, the crawling discomfort in his skin, and the pinch between his eyes? He had no answers.
“Maybe Ms. Stone has noticed something?” he muttered as he measured out tea leaves—a sweet black tea blend with cinnamon bark and dried orange rind. Determined, he reached out his senses to Bulma’s home at Capsule Corp. Sierra, too, was awake and agitated, and pacing the kitchen while her tea steeped; to his surprise, the paper anchor revealed she, too, was drinking black tea flavored with orange and spices. That...didn’t feel like a coincidence… Sierra’s pacing grew almost frantic; her fingers dug and tugged at her hair between hand-wringing, and she muttered to herself. Someone appeared at the kitchen doorway—Bulma. Before she could ask, Sierra answered: “It’s my niece—her father—he’s—”
Dende didn’t need to hear any more. He searched out Rowan’s home south of Downtown West City—a duplex nestled in a row of others exactly like it, housing two humans who always stood out in a crowd. Both Rowan and her mother were asleep, just like he should be. Lightning erupted in the Eastern sky—close enough to see but too distant to hear the thunder, and unaccompanied by rain—and the flash illuminated a figure approaching from down the street. The sound of a barking dog split the silence. Unbidden, Dende recalled the warnings he overheard when he listened in earlier that night. Dry lightning. A barking dog. Once the dog went silent, only the car alarm would separate the family from danger unknown.
Now Dende unintentionally imitated Sierra in another way—he paced the kitchen, lurching from one end to the other, fretting and fighting with himself. Going one direction, he reminded himself of the rules and regulations the Kami operated under—Kami shouldn’t interfere, and so far, he’d done little but interfere!—at the wall he turned about and stalked the other way, arguing for the very interference that he was forbidden from—Rowan and her mother were in grave danger, but he could protect them if he acted quickly. He had a duty to humankind, but did that duty trump the rules of his post? Rules and regulations—duty and obligations—which mattered more? If he turned his eyes away to follow the Kamis’ creed… He froze, one hand clenched on his neck, eyes wide and frantic, and focused on the goings-on below again. The dog yelped—no, wailed— then fell to near-silent whimpering. He could help...if he didn’t ...how could he ever live with it?
I won’t ask for help.
He never noticed Popo standing in the hallway, watching him with that same blank expression. His focus was far below the lookout on a disaster he couldn’t solve and a family he couldn’t save.
The duplex was silent, and its occupants sleeping. Amidst the familiar white noise that fills every home, small pieces of sensation broke through. Rustling sheets in one bedroom—a woman tossing and turning in hopes of escaping her nightmares—the gleam of a small screen cut the darkness in another room, a tiny LED below it flashing. All was as it should be...then, as suddenly as a hand over a mouth and a whispered greeting, everything went wrong.
Outside the duplex, lightning split the sky without a drop of rain. Inside, four people faced off–a woman and her daughter, and a man and his son. The mother raged and struggled with the kidnappers, fighting tooth and nail. Her daughter stared, struggling to put a name to a familiar face, and demanded explanations. Lights flickered and bulbs burst, appliances turned on and off, and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors blared and silenced in no certain pattern. Words volleyed back and forth between the two women and their attackers but to no avail—no one held their tongues long enough to understand or be understood.
All the while, Rowan looked from the two black-haired intruders to her mother and back again, bewildered and frightened. Rowan was untouched, possibly because she wasn't resisting—she felt too stunned to fight as if she was watching the fiasco from somewhere outside her body—a helpless onlooker witnessing a violent crime, or a disturbed patron viewing a troubling painting in a museum. Lightning flashed outside the window behind her, reflected in the framed photos on the wall, and no audible concussion followed. All the while, Rowan watched from the corner she’d wedged herself into—unable to run, unable to hide, and entirely unable to fight for her family.
The dark, silent, and empty street might have frightened lesser men, but Robert Biers wasn’t the easily frightened sort. He was tall and rugged, albeit with a developing beer gut, and very much used to getting his way. Those who tried to oppose him...well, the ones who survived tended to remember him vividly, from his scruffy red hair and beard to his antifreeze green eyes. He was the sort who believed he feared nothing; the gunshot behind him nearly drove him right out of his skin. He spun in place, staggering at the sudden motion and equally sudden stop, and flinched when a car alarm began blaring. Any chance of approaching unnoticed was out the window.
A tall, rugged man perched on the hood of the still-whooping car—Rio’s silver hybrid—with one booted foot propped on the tire beneath him. The building storm rustled his long black duster; a menacingly large revolver and a mangled patch of turf at Robert’s feet explained the gunshot he heard. Dark grey eyes glared from beneath a wide-brimmed hat, and stiff, scowling lips warned of danger. Robert Biers, however, wasn't the sort who took warnings from anyone, let alone weirdos who sat on shitty cars. “Who are you?!” he shouted at the stranger.
“Does it matter?” The stranger holstered his weapon–as if to say Biers was no threat to him. The very idea gnawed at Robert’s pride. “I’m armed, I have little tolerance for fools, and I’m attached to the brats who live here. Get lost before you get hurt.” All around them, specks of darkness began to appear, spread, then puddle on the street and sidewalk as the rain caught up to the thunder and lightning. Robert recalled with a twisted grin another moment when another sort of liquid puddled and spread on a sidewalk, though that instance involved blood spilling from Rio’s cracked skull.
“My daughter lives here,” he sneered at the stranger, and added, “a man has a right to visit his child.”
Now the stranger reacted—his eyes grew flinty and cold, his back straightened and stiffened, and his shoulders tensed. He pulled off his hat and let the wind sweep his hair into complete disarray—wild and crimson hair, shot with the steely grey of age. He stood and shrugged off his duster, and hung both coat and hat on the vehicle’s side mirror. Robert wasn't impressed by the stranger's bare muscles or the near absence of scars on said muscles; any idiot could build himself up in the gym but only a real man could actually use those muscles. “You’ll wish you hadn’t said that,” the stranger warned . “I could have you on the ground in three seconds...but what the hell. You don’t deserve it.”
It took precisely three seconds for the screams to start.
Fighting accomplished nothing. Hiding accomplished nothing. Running accomplished nothing. Wasn’t it just that evening that Rowan entreated her mother, if not in so many words, to stop running and hiding and fight for her family? Well … Rowan deflated. Now she was fighting, but the wrong people. Again the lights flickered, and again, her radio blipped on, skirted through a few stations, squealed, then fell silent. This whole situation was unreal, completely ludicrous! Even if she politely ignored the house going Amityville around her, how could two strange men just appear in her hallway the way they did? It was as if…
...no. It wasn’t as if... it simply was.
“Hey!” The intruders turned to Rowan, the elder pinning her mother’s wrists at her shoulder blades from behind. Complete silence aside from Rio letting out another litany of shrieked threats toward his genitals. “Did He send you?” she demanded of the two stunned intruders. “Were you sent by Kami-sama?” The older man went to speak, but the teenager jabbed him in the side with an elbow and nodded. Another appliance went on the fritz—her clock radio again—and she easily recognized the song despite the few broken words and chords that leaked through. Don’t Fear the Reaper.
Outside, a single gunshot rang out; shouting followed, a voice that sent patches of black splintering through Rio’s vision and ice skittering through Rowan’s veins. “Kuikku!” Rowan shook off the scare even as her mother keened and stumbled. Calm, she reminded herself; someone had to stay calm. Robert never carried a gun but her uncle was never without one; Kuikku wasn’t the one bleeding. ... unless Robert brought help for once...no, surely...the sooner she and her mother were out of the way, the sooner Kuikku could safely unleash holy Hell on her bastard of a father.
“You!” She jabbed the younger intruder in the chest with her finger as a nearby car alarm began whooping. “Later,” she warned in something midway between a snarl and a shout, “you’re explaining everything!”
An indignant sputter, then the silence of an empty house. Many miles above the world, a still-young Namekian collapsed on the kitchen floor, his energy depleted. The last thing he saw before the void closed around him was his assistant’s unusually emotional face...stern, and more than a little worried.
The house was empty. All the lights were dark—off or rendered useless by shattered bulbs—and furniture lay scattered and toppled. Blue curtains patterned with hibiscus flowers flew in the wind from an open window and gusts sent raindrops scattering across the old pink carpet; lightning alternately brightened and cast shadows over the faded green walls. On the small desk scattered with scratch paper and drawing supplies, a charging cellphone buzzed. The screen lit up with a selfie of two people–one pale, young, and excited, with carrot red hair and cheerful green eyes, the other darker and stoic with sleek brown hair and smiling brown eyes–and the name Aunt Dai. The phone bleated the refrain of a song–a ringtone custom chosen for a missing person.
Can't read my–can't read my–no, he can't read my poker face!
She's got me like nobody.
Can't read my–can't read my–no, he can't read my poker face!
Outside, shouts, curses, and another gunshot rang out, then a blood-curdling scream. Inside, the phone fell silent with a missed call notification then rang again...and again...and again...

Up Next: Dende makes hard decisions, Popo is disappointed, Kuikku cleans up the mess over breaking and entering, Goku runs into an old enemy, Rowan and Dende are kinda cute, and Sierra FINALLY contacts her family and then promptly falls apart in Quicksilver and Slow Blues

Notes
Regarding Rio’s speech issues - during times of great stress and fear, Rio sometimes starts speaking in, put simply, broken English. This is a direct result of both problems left by her brain injury and her fighting a panic attack without proper coping skills. It’s directly related to her PTSD and TBI.
Dry lightning – as common as this is in my region, I was sure it was a normal weather phenomenon. NOPE. Turns out I have some ethnocentric views of weather. Put simply, dry lightning is just lightning that occurs without rain accompanying it; more often than not, it doesn’t end up raining afterward, and the whole situation has been known to start fires. I wasn’t able to find info on whether it occurs in environments like what West City is described as, so just assume the lightning arrived early and the rain is late.
Regarding Al – No, she’s not Sierra and Rio’s mother (remember, their mother’s name is Evita ) but she is someone of import to them.
Rowan’s ringtone for Sierra is Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” It’s entirely snarky, chosen on account of Rowan’s assertion that Sierra’s “poker face is next to none.” (Funny how so many people can see right through it.)
* Starset, “My Demons”
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